Perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) has been used to increase the areal recording density of magnetic storage media. A PMR media stack generally includes a substrate, an antiferromagnetic coupled soft magnetic underlayer (AFC-SUL), a seed layer, an intermediate layer, a grain isolation initiation layer (GIIL) and a magnetic layer stack, in that order. The magnetic layer stack includes a number of magnetic layers separated by a number of exchange-break layers (EBLs) or exchange-control layers (ECLs). The GIIL can enhance magnetic decoupling of the magnetic layers, and the EBLs help to reduce the coercivity (Hc) and saturation field (Hs) of the PMR media stack as a whole. Reduction of intergranular magnetic coupling of the magnetic layers is desirable because it can improve the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the PMR media stack.